The Primus and Les Claypool albums you should definitely own

Sailing The Seas Of Cheese (Interscope 1991)

A masterpiece of barking-mad genre-bending and insidious wonky hooks, Primus’ second studio album was perfect for the uncertain but curious early 90s.

Boasting several of their best-loved songs and crowd-pleasers, not least the towering genius of Tommy The Cat and the rampaging Jerry Was A Racecar Driver, it’s a beautifully cohesive record full of brilliantly crafted songs that exude so much energy that the genuinely bizarre nature of Primus’ approach to rock’n’roll barely registers. From the angular strut of Here Come The Bastards through to the progressive hues of Fish On (Fisherman’s Chronicles, Chapter II), it’s wildly entertaining.

Pork Soda (Interscope, 1993)

Darker, heavier and noticeably more experimental than predecessor …Cheese, Pork Soda’s sonic girth made perfect sense in a post-Metallica world.

But Primus were not conforming to any ongoing trends. Instead they were serving up obnoxious slabs of rubbery metal, pogoing like meth-ripped hillbillies, channelling the spirit of Bootsy Collins and Frank Zappa and generally sounding like the bastard children of Captain Beefheart and Rush. Pork Soda also highlighted the band’s utter disinterest in chasing cool bandwagons. The thunderous, eight-minute Hamburger Train was as liberated and free-flowing as any Grateful Dead freak-out.

Frizzle Fry (Caroline, 1990)

Although preceded by Suck On This, a live album that included several of Frizzle Fry’s tunes in more raucous form, this, their debut proper is where Primus truly set out their stall.

With Les Claypool’s percussive bass lines front and centre, and drummer Tim Alexander’s loose-limbed loops propelling everything along, this could have been little more than an off-kilter muso-fest. But thanks to Primus’s subtle touches – guitarist Larry Lalonde’s squawks and clangs, Claypool’s lysergic poetry – Frizzle Fry oozed colour, warmth and a shitload of singalong gems such as John The Fisherman and the unhinged Too Many Puppies.

Tales From The Punchbowl (Interscope, 1995)

Arguably the last of Primus’ significant commercial hits, Tales From The Punchbowl has the most well-rounded and vivid production of any of the band’s albums. It also has Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver, a song designed to have men of all ages tittering hysterically, and one that also encapsulates Primus’ sound: weird, catchy, mischievous and ever so slightly demented.

Hits aside, Tales has some of the band’s best songs, ranging from the monstrous splurge of Professor Nutbutter’s House Of Treats through to the nightmare of Over The Electric Grapevine. Strange tales indeed.

Green Naugahyde (ATO, 2011)

Green Naugahyde’s big selling point was that it sounded like a joyful reunion with the taut grooves and bug-eyed shaggy-dog stories that had first endeared Primus to the world.

Although named after a cheap form of fake leather, this was an authentic Claypoolian experience, drummer Jay Lane’s whipcrack precision upping the funk and enabling his comrades to go fully bonkers over the top. Sombre in parts (Jilly’s On Smack paid tribute to a friend lost to heroin) and socially astute in others (Eye Of The Squirrel pointed an accusing finger at the idiocy of television), this was a potent coming of age.

(Brown Album (Interscope, 1997)

Les Claypool’s natural affinity with Tom Waits and his shed of weird instruments and weirder ideas found its perfect forum on Primus’s fifth album and first with Brian ‘Brain’ Mantia on drums. Sonically grubby and deliciously shambolic, songs like Shake Hands With Beef and the spiky Fisticuffs showed that the band had shrugged off the last of their funk-metal shackles and plunged into a world of shadowy oddness.

At its best, Brown Album is spellbinding: Duchess And The Proverbial Mind Spread sounds like The Police gone wrong (and therefore so, so right), and Over The Falls is genuinely pretty in a way that Primus generally aren’t.

The Desaturating Seven (ATO, 2017)

On their ninth studio outing, Les Claypool reconvened the band’s classic line-up – guitarist LaLonde and drummer Alexander – for a weirdly engrossing tribute to the 1978 children’s story, The Rainbow Goblins. 

All of the familiar Primus elements are present: pendulous basslines, loopy melodies and cartoony vocals, not least on opening track The Valley. Yet unlike the band’s 2014 tripped-out tribute to Willy Wonka, The Desaturating Seven unfurled darker, moodier soundscapes with mesmerising forays into psychedelic experimentalism. There’s an undeniable sense of both subtlety and maturity here that feel almost out of place, yet it’s in these shady nuances that one taps into the bizarro brilliance of Primus. 

Sausage - Riddles Are Abound Tonight (Interscope, 1994)

From what is effectively a reconvening of the first Primus line-up, Riddles Are Abound Tonight cast Sausage as a fully explainable detour for Les Claypool. This one-off jam-boree eschewed most of the usual Primus trademarks in favour of rugged but lissom groove explorations that made up for a lack of melody by being almost offensively funky.

The fact that guitarist Todd Huth was a different kettle of plectrums from Larry Lalonde added to the impression that Sausage was an apple that had fallen from the Primus tree, but with enough momentum to take Claypool somewhere different.

Primus & The Chocolate Factory With The Fungi Ensemble (ATO, 2014)

When Primus reimagined the songs from Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, the outcome was a joy. Les Claypool’s love for Gene Wilder’s performance in the film shines through, Primus’ gleeful dismantlings of Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley’s originals retaining the spirit of wide-eyed mischief and chaos that Wilder had revelled in.

Augmented by the cello and marimba of the Fungi Ensemble, Primus jettisoned their usual sound and ventured into the realms of purest fantasy. It’s hard to imagine anyone else getting away with it.

Les Claypool & The Holy Mackerel - Highball With The Devil (Interscope, 1996)

There are a bewildering number of Les Claypool side-projects, one-off bands and occasional collectives, but for those seeking a gentle starting point Highball With The Devil is ideal.

The songs on Claypool’s first solo record, credited to Les Claypool And The Holy Mackerel, don’t stray too far from the Primus blueprint, but Les was clearly enjoying a chance to dabble in unfamiliar waters, playing the majority of instruments himself and getting Henry Rollins to add narration to Delicate Tendrils. He also drew the cover art himself. Clever sod.

Antipop (Interscope, 1999)

Primus never released an outright stinker, but Antipop is by far the band’s least satisfying record. It doesn’t help that guest stars from the late-90s alt.metal elite – Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello and Limp Bizkit goon Fred Durst – smacked of cynicism and record company interference, but at least half of the songs here are substandard. 

There are great moments too, of course – Eclectic Electric, featuring James Hetfield, is a mini prog-metal masterpiece, and Coattails Of A Dead Man uses the vocal gifts of Tom Waits and one-time Tricky alumnus Marina Topley-Bird to scintillating effect – but much of Antipop chases its tail to no discernible effect.